News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-09-08

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that voyage, he supplementeds the instruction
he had obtained by working in a printing
Office But there is.an inexpressible charm IN
the ever-changeful variety of a sea life, and
consequently, in 1857, he is again to be met
| with, working on little steamer and rated as
an ordinary seaman, on his way to California,
! by way of the Straits of Magellan.
After long and tedious voyage he reached
San Francisco. He there joined party of
miners, and proceeded with tEem to visit Brit
! ish Columbia. After a few months sojourn,
however, in that wild country, where the gold
| fields then promised much but really yielded
i;tle he changed his plans, and, again return
ing to California for a second time went to
work in printing office. Here he remained
! until he was twenty-one, when he was admit
ted journeyman compositor. About this
time he was married
In 1867 he accepted employment as reporter
on new daily newspaper in San Francisco,
and in very few months he rose to be the
managing editor.
Mr.. George visited New York in 1868 for the
purpose of obtaining Geographic news. Here
the sad scenes of woe and misery that he be-
held among the poor, contrasted with the
boundlesS and waSteful extravaganza of the
wealthy, compelled his earnest and thoughtful
attention. Commenting on his feelings, he
says:
''When realized for the first time the ex-
trem of wealth and poverty that are to be
seen in great cities, sentiment very much
aroused. l had begun to think, and when l
returned to California / thought more and
more until | arrived at the conclusions wlriclf
| have ever since held, and which | first
briefly stated in a pamphlet published in 1871,
called Our Land and Land Policy.
On his second entry into San Francisco, Mr..
George was offered and accepted the editor
ship of another newspaper with share IN its
returns but change in the ownership of the
stock brought about the withdrawal of this
paper from his control.
Shortly after that Mr.. George, with two
friends. who also were printers, started the
San Francisco Post, which, in less than two
years, had large circulation and became an
Influenza newspaper. In 1873 this partner
ship was dissolved Mr.. George being appointed
to State office. Between 1877 and 1879 in
comparative leisure, he wrote Progress and
Poverty.
In 1881 he went to Ireland and remained
for year on the other side of the Atlantic.
1t would be hard to overrate the good effect
his addresses produced in that island, or the
extraordinary ability with which he after
ward related what he saw in his travels in the
Irish World Having delivered public lee
turs there in almost every city of note, he then
passed over into Scotland, where, commencing
with defending the cause of the poor perse-
culed Crofters, whose wrongs he wildly ex-
posed, and whose sufferings he cordially and
kindly sympathiZed, he proceeded southwark,
delivering orations which were earnestly list
ened to by crowds in most of the large cities
of Scotland and England. He concluded his
labors by standing on the steps Of the Royal
Exchange of London, and speaking to an i'm
mense audience. While in England the Duke
of Argyle published a pamphlet containing an
attempt to cOntrOvert Mr.. Georges theories
respecting the wisdom of instituting means to
prevent land monopOliZatiOn; Mr. George
Immediately answered it, and it was very gem
orally admitted that the Duke had no reason
to be proud of the encounter.
Since returning to New York and making
his home there, Mr.. Georges story is more ia
miliar to our readers. de is now publishing
the Standard, a six-column quarto, weekly,
which has reached the seventh number of its
second volume, and which is apparently pros
pering.
Mr.. Georges ''theory" or doctrine" may be
concisely stated as to claim it both wise and
just to do two things: First, to gradually
increase the taxes on land until the owners of
natural opportunities pay to the community
the full rental value of their holdings and it
becomes no longer necessary to tax the prod
ucts of labor in any form; second, to have the
Government assume the control of the rail
roads, telegraph, telephone, and similar pub
lie functions, just as it now controls the Post
Office Department.
The student in practical political econ
Omy will find ample room for the exercise
of his reasoning and analytical faculties in de-
termining the value of the land tax idea:
whether it is an important contribution to
existing plans for industrial and social i'm
provement, or simply, as one metropolitan
journal expressed 1t, Henry George rot"